To Salad, you bastard

Since July I have been on the Raw Food De.tox Diet. Uh, yeah. It IS as good as it sounds. This has been my breakfast now for two and half months--kale, celery, apple, lemon and ginger juice. Then I am allowed to eat fruit later in the morning. At lunch, I can have a salad, usually I put in spinach or arugula, onion, tomato, mushroom, olives, and maybe an egg or three. Olive oil and a splash of vinegar. Dinner is the same, except maybe a piece of fish, or a half cup of rice. FOR TWO MONTHS.

I feel like a monk. Or someone with an eating disorder. Except I am still fat.

The entire reason I kicked off this detoxification thing is that I hadn't lost weight since February, even though my calorie count wouldn't exceed 1200/day. This all seems crazy, I know, but it is true. I even factored in my wine(s) into my food journal. And sometimes Sam would read my diary and say, "Uh, you do realize your wine calorie count is equal to your food intake calorie count?"
"Hey, calories are calories, jackass. I have to count them." And really, seeing my drinking habits in numbers in a little green book was disturbing. So, I stopped the wine, and still, no weight loss.

Let's be fair, okay. I lost my appetite when Lucy died. I went with it.

So, when that didn't help my weight loss either, giving up the wine. It all felt so cruel. Dead baby and a postpartum shape. So, I began suspecting a food allergy. I was feeling kind of crappy in my GI system, and wanted to get the wine residue out of my system. My friend had been doing this raw food thing, and so I bought the book. I began eliminating all allergens--dairy, wheat, barley, gluten, soy. It left me the above diet. And in July I lost twelve pounds.

Finally, momentum.

I cannot tell you how fucking bored I am with eating. I mean, I subscribe to F00d and W.ine. Slack-jawed, mouth watering, saucer-like eyes, I would throw it across the room and just shriek. But I felt better, you know, a ton better physically. Slept better. Woke better. But, I would see a bowl of green, and just sigh. I'm not even hungry anymore. If I eat another leaf of spinach, I might turn into some fucking maenad and attack the wild animals in the woods, tearing them apart with my veggie-dulled incisors. And because of my ennui with it all, I decided I need some allergy testing. I needed to start bringing some things back into my diet, especially as my weight loss stymied again. I might as well eat something. I was becoming a raging nasty woman. I chased a squirrel up a tree one morning.

Yesterday, I finally got my results, and I am not allergic to anything. Nothing. I do have an underactive thyroid though, despite the fact that I was tested after Lucy died.

It explains so much. SO much.

I ate three pieces of pizza last night. Guilt-free splurge. It was heaven. I mean, I am still planning on the counting calorie, eating mostly raw, but I wanted to celebrate my newly-cleared-of-allergies body. But then, dinner conversation was mostly dominated with the real diagnosis. Hypothyroidism. It makes me feel less crazy. I was beginning to suspect that I was one of those sleep walking bingers. Sam felt vindication for me. "You even lost weight with this insane thyroid number." But then it sunk in, what does this diagnosis mean for pregnancy? For the rest of my life? Will I always battle about my weight, sleep, energy? Will I always be adjusting my medication? It is all so confusing and swirling. I am just trying to breathe, hit the library and remain happy that I have a diagnosis of something.

For now, I can say in all earnestness, "Salad, you can suck it for a while."